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LETTER FROM COL. EDMONDSTON 

TO THE 

Hon. REVERDY JOHNSON, U. S. Senate, 



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CONCERNINS THE 



CONGfiESSIONAL "JUNTO.' 



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CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS TO NOMINATE THE 
PRESIDENT. 



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INSIDIOUS SOPIEME TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT. 
BEN. WADE, "sT ANTON ^ 

THE PET6 OF THE "JUNTO." 



TACTICS OF ULTRA RADICALS 
to peeserve power. 

Andrkw Johnson, to outflank the Congress, — ^the 
Pkdi'i.e's nominee for President. — Political Parties: 

INCLUDING EXTRACT FROM A 

"REPORT" 

CONCERNINO THE 
TO REBUILD THE 

LEVEES OF LOUISIANA. 



LETTER FROM COL. EDMONDSTON 



TO THE 



Hon. REVERDY JOHNSON, U. S. Senate, 



CONCERNING THE 



CONGRESSIONAL ^'JUNTO." 

CONGKESSIONAL CAUCUS TO NOMINATE THE 
PRESIDENT. 

INSIDIOUS SCHEME TO IMPEzVCH THE PRESIDENT. 
BEN. WADE, STANTON nf C.c.rxctx^.cSaP^s\ 



THE PETS OF THE ".JUNTO." 



/ 



TACTICS OF ULTRA RADICALS 
to preserve power. 

Andrew Johnson, to outflank the Congress. — the 
People's nominee for President. — Political Parties: 

INCLUDIXr, EXTRACT FKOM A 

"REPORT" 

CONCERNING THE 
TO REBUILD THE 

LEVELS OF LOUISIANA. 

/ H < 
/ 



JA 



EonoraUe REVERDY JOHNSON, 
U. S. Sexaie. 

Sir: 

The moment seems to be extremely auspicious to break down 
the degrading Congressional system which is fast paralyzing the 
country. The best citizens acknowledge the embarrassments 
of the Administration — they acknowledge that under the usur- 
pations and overtowering control of Congress offices are con- 
ferred merely to preserve power, and without the least regard 
to fitness. 

A Congressional Caucus is in embryo to nominate either 
Ben Wade^^'Stanton, • -j-^"'-'*^ f^"^^ for the Presidency of the 
"United States. Whether ^we consider the measure itself, the 
character ""and talents of the men, or " I whence they 

come, these nominations would be equally exceptionable and 
odious. — These Congressional nominations are hostile to all 
freedom and independence of suffrages. 

A certain " Junto," of actual and factitious men^ho have 
possession of the Government consider the United States as 
their property, and by bawling support their claims,') have too 
long succeeded in duping the Kepublican masses. One of their 
principal arts, and which has been systematically taught by 
the 'Jacobins, is that of promoting State dissensions, not be- 
tween the Radicals and Conservatives, — that would do them 
no good, — ^but schisms among the " Moderate Republicans." 
By looking around it may be seen how the attention of leading 



meu in the different States has thus been turned from general 
and State politics. Tliis disgraceful domination should not 
continue. Concerning Wade, ~' ' ' l and Stanton, indepen- 
dently of the manner of such contemplated nomination, the 
men themselves are the most improper and incompetent that 
could be selected — naturall}' dull, pliant and obsequious, inde- 
cisive to a degree that would be incredible to those who do not 
know them; vacillating and of course hypocritical, — having 
no opinion on any subject, and who would always be under the 
government of the worst of men, — such characters would be 
exactly suited to the Ilg,dical "Junto." To this "Junto" some 
good men have sacrificed themselves; and what have they got 
by it? their hatred and abhorrence! Like tlie victim in 
"Goethe's Faust, they were expected to sell their soul to the 
Devil for the glory of participating in the Government of the 
world for a few hours." 

Were those who compose the 'Junto' ever known to counte- 
nance a man of talents and independence of character? 
never— nor ever will ! 

It is time that certain prominent men should venture to call 
" their souls, tlieir own," by manifesting that the}- have some 
individual character — some opinion of their own. Teach this 
'Junto' to fear an opposing power, and they will at once, be at 
its feet ! Thus far, they have reason to believe that those 
opposed to them, fear them. 

If, then, tliere be a man in the United States, of firmness 
and decision of purpose, and having standing enough to afford 
even a hope of success as the Presidential nominee, it is the 
duty of the people to hold him up to public vie-w: — thut man 
is AxDREW JoHNSox! Notliing is wanting but a respectable 
nomination, and Johnson's success is inevitable. Whether a 
formal and open nomination should at once be made, or whe- 



ther for the present, the Slate Legislatures should be content 
with barely denouncing Congressional caucuses and nomina- 
tions, the friends of Andrew Johnson may judge. One con- 
sideration may incline us to hesitate about the policy of a 
precipitate nomination : it is this — that the nominee ought at 
lirst to be passive ; from the moment he shall be announced as 
a candidate, he will be assailed by the Congressional 'Junto,' 
with menaces, and with insidious promises of boons and favors. 
There is danger thi,t Johnson might be wrought upon by such 
practices. 

These suggestions should not be considered as arising from 
any exclusive attachment to any candidate in particular, or 
design to make any special nomination for the Presidency, — 
the object is, to break down this vile combination which rules 
and degrades the United States. If any other man could be 
held up with better prospect of success, let his name he 
announced : — there would seem to be none such. 

So long as the present system prevails, this country wiU ]}e 
struggling against wind and tide to preserve q. precarious exis^ 
tence. 

If, at the proper time. Johnson will hold himself aloof from 
the perfidious caresses with which he may be overwhelmed at 
"Washington, his nomination may prove successful. He is 
personally popular, and possesses a commanding influence over 
those with whom he commingles, or is in any manner con- 
nected— ^an ascendancy which, in a measure, can only be 
ascribed to the force of intellect. 

The lines of political parties may thus be drawn : 

First, the violent Radicals, who are for expelling and de- 
priving of property all rebels in the Southern States, in hopes, 
by that nieans, to preserve the power in their own hands. 





Second, are those who wish to suppress all violence, to sotteii 
the rigour of the laws, against the lately rebellious, and not to 
interdict them from that political and social equality which 
may by degrees obliterate the remembrance of past misdeeds! 

Third, are those w'ho hope for power under the idea that the 
remembrance of tlie past should be lost, though they continually 
keep it up by their avowed attachment to the "lost cause." 

It may readily be inferred that Andrew Johnson sj^mpathizes 
with the second of the above parties. 

The vindictive fury that would threaten to impeach the 
President, is the mere idle splutter of restless political squab- 
blers whose brains are a little disordered with the whirl of 
political commotion — a measure so unprecedented in the history 
of our Eepublic, directly tending to anarchy and revolution, 
simply excites a smile among sensible men. 

Preparatory to the elections, the people cannoL be too cau- 
tious in their future choice of Senators, that none be elected 
but those on whom from long and certain experience, they can 
lely as men attached to the liberties of their country, and firm 
friends to our laws and Constitution ; men who will spurn at 
any proposition that has a tendency to curtail the privileges of 
the people, and who at the same time, that they protect us 
against judicial tyranny, have wisdom to see the propriety of 
supporting that necessary independence in courts of justice, 
both of the liegislature and people. Concerning the results of 
the late intestine war, and thereupon the conceived necessity 
of reconstructing the Southern States preparatory to their re- 
admission into the Union, it is hard to say which condition, 
that of the oppressor, or the oppressed, most disqualifies for a 
just appreciation of the great principles of Civil Liberty, and 
a firm and resolute purpose to establish free institutions. 



T?he wilJ, or purposes of the legitimate people of this State- 
concerning the re-establisliment of said institutions as they 
might conceive would constitute their future safety and welfare 
Under the extraordinary measures imposed by " edict " of Con- 
gress — -they have no means of expressing nor indeed was it 
contemplated that they should bo consulted nor even con- 
sidered. 

Therefore, it may as well, at once be proclaimed ; now, and 
in all time to come : that State reconstruction under the Doctrine 
promulgated bj^ acts of Congress predicated upon the "Sherman 
Military Bill " is simply a short-lived farce that will not stand 
the test of time — an experiment manifestly at war with the 
laws of ISTature, — -with all rational system of Government, — 
and utterly unsupported bv any sound theory of political 
philosophy or economy. Setting aside the sacred magna 
charta of the Union, this doctrine strikes the American mind 
as a superlatively absiirb and degrading despotism. 

When vre refioct that under the Federal compact of these 
United States there can be no centralized powers of Govern- 
ment permitted to absorb the reserved powers of State Govern- 
ment without subverting the Constitution, and that it is pre- 
posterous to conceive the idea of any vested power in Congress 
whereby a State may bo held and gov^erned as a conquered 
province, the conviction is irresistible that the edict of Congress 
prescribing a Constitution for a State through the modus 
operandi of reserving to itself the right to reject or accept it, 
is an unwarrantable assumption of power unknown to the laws 
derived from the Constitution under which we profess to live. 

Some of our military political economists plunge at random 
into a confusion of ideas by assuming a starting point aa a 
settled fact, and therefrom plausibly argue deductions which 
they coneoive to be not onl}^ logical, but irrefutable. But if 



8 

perchance their starting pdiut be wrong, the data from 
which they reason be false, necessarily all the conclusions they 
arrive at are simply illusory. If, for instance, they predicate 
their arguments upon what they are pleased to assume as law, 
when in reality it is not law, but nlerely an edict, promulgated 
and sustained by force, or the persuasive power of the bayonet, 
then indeed all their plausible deductions, and lofty interpre- 
tations are dissipated, and at once fall to the ground. To prove 
this proposition, and such argumentative deductions, it would 
be only necessary that a superior array of an Opposing 
military power should promulgate, and sustain by force, an 
Edict, diametrically opposed in spirit to what may have been 
promulgated as law by inferior force. Itere, then, we would 
have, so-called laws, diametrically opposed, each pronounced 
and proclaimed in turn by the argument of force, and yet the 
stronger arm would plausibly maintain the thedry advanced 
by inferior force, to be fallacious ! 

Next to the influences excited in reference to the condition 
(politically) of the country, so far as immediately concerns 
the interests of Louisiana, there is no other element conducive 
to the future prosperity of the Slate in any degree equal in 
importance to that which may be derived froni a suitable system 
df Levee prdtectidn against the periodical floods of the Missis- 
sippi River. 

In view thereof, the following Extract from a "Report'' 
upon that subject is respectfully submitted : 

"Extract from a report, concerning the "ways and means" to 
rebuild the Levees of Louisiana. 

" The measures proposed to rebuild the Levees consist of a 
mere loan of the National credit ; not likely in the end 
to cost the Government a ddllar, but certain to develop at 



& 

once tlie resources of a great State, restore it to its formei: en« 
viable position in the financial and commercial world, and save 
its citizens from the effects of poverty and destitution which 
they are now suffering. 

Such beneficial results should be considered from a National 
point of view as might be supposed to authorize the work to 
be commenced and carried on as a National work inasmuch as 
that the advantages to be derived will not be confined to the 
limits of a single State, but will be extended throughout the 
States bordering the Mississippi Valley. 

Louisiana is now insolvent: all she wants [is credit. The 
Nation can give that credit without possible loss to itself. 

When the Agricultural Districts of the State are protected 
by an efiicient system of Levees^ and the swamp lands re- 
clairned, as they may be, we shall witriess the return of those 
days so unwisely closed for a time by the late war, and the 
Country instead of sending abroad many millions of money 
annually to purchase sugar at exorbitant prices, will again be- 
come an exporter of the article and thus create abroad credits 
founded on labor, the true and only basis of wealth ; thereby 
augmenting individual prosperity and adding solidity and 
strength to our National finances. 

Until the Levees are rebuilt, poverty and destitution must 
reign supreme. If Congress possesses the power through a 
Freedman's Bureau to feed a helpless people from the Federal 
coffers, let no man deny its authority to do what is absolutely 
necessary to make them self-sustaining. If Congress through 
its edicts can build school-houses to give food for the mind, it 
may build Levees to save the body from perishing. 

Labor is the great demand of the country to-day. The 
negro cannot leave the South : it is his native, his natural 
home. Let lis by rebuilding the Levee?!, open up fields of 



ID 

iudiistry for iiim, aad the competition for bis labor will go far 
to settle the question of his rights. This competition will do 
more than " Freedmen's Bureaux, or " Civil Rights bills." 

In concluding the remarks concerning the Levees of 
Louisiana, we should not omit to notice the strange ideas 
developed under Militarj^ G-overnments in these " piping 
times of peace." The following article published in the 
"Republican" of New Orleans, touches pointedly an " erratic 
scheme" seriously proposing, through the aid of Military 
authority, to'buiid the Levees by "draft,** viz ; 

The State Levees— =-A Draft Proposed to Rebuild TitEMi 

" The levee convention, composed of representatives merely 
of fractional portions of only two or three parishes, with no 
co-operative representation from other districts subject to inun^ 
dation throughout the State, have devised a new plan to pro* 
vide " ways and means'* of rebuilding the levees, viz: A draft 
of able-bodied m.en^ white and of African descent, between the 
ages of eighteen and forty-five. Well, we had thought we 
were done with the drafts for the time being — at least until 
such time as another war perchance might be improvised; we 
Were not aware that any coramotionj short of war, could under 
the laws of the land warrant a draft. 

*' But it seems the levees are to be put on a "war-footing," 
and all men white and black, between eighteen and forty-five 
within the districts subject to floods of the Mississippi, arc 
forthwith admonished to hold themselves in readiness to turn 
out to construct levee embankments whenever the appeal of 
the levee conventionists shall evoke an order to that effect from 
the commanding general of the fifth military district. 

In the event of the promulgation of such order, the conven- 
tionists remark " that a commutation of $1 a day from each, 
per capita, of those drafted, will be received in lieu of their 
personal labor on the line of levee works." 

We fear this new scheme to build the levee will not work, 
and that in the end " Uncle Sam'* will have to undertake the 
job. 

Those, officio and ex- officio, who are agitating the levee 
question, do not as yet seem to comprehend the m.agnitude of 



n 

the woi'k, 110)- to be i'all y aware of the large amount of means 
required to provide an efficient S3'stern of levee protection for 
the State. 

'Tis true their misconceptions may arise, partly from what 
they have learned from inexperienced and untutored engineerf!, 
many of whom believe they can "square the circle," or demon- 
strate the feasibility of "perpetual motion." Among the hallu- 
cinations entertained by not a few levee commissioners, the 
plan of closing all outlets, and confining the waters in one vast 
volume within the banks of the Mississippi may be here alluded 
10 as their most favorite theory. 

The closing of bayous meandering through the State as out- 
lets of the surcharged -waters of the Mississippi is a measure so, 
absurd, and so utterly opposed to those natural laws which 
provide the only rational means of relieving extensive districts, 
of country from overflow, or of surplus waters, that it is only 
w^onderfui that such a measure finds advocates among men 
having any degree or claim to common sense. 

Such a measure should at once be condemned, inasmuch as 
that it is utterly unsupported by any of the knovv'n laws of 
hydrology. 

It surely should be clear, even to the most obtuse mind, that 
the greater the discharge, or the more numerous the outlets for 
conducting off the surplus w^aters, the more rapidly is the main 
volume of such waters reduced. And as these bayou,s all find 
their way continuously and oonnec lively to the gulf, they 
should be prized as most useful natural veins of discharge, and 
as efforts of nature to relieve the country from the effects of 
overflow and inundation. 

Let us, thereforf^, notwithstanding the conflicting theories of 
engineers, keep our bayous open and unobstructed, and, if 
possible, open other outlets and channels to conduct the surplus 
waters to the Gulf, which is sufficiently capacious to receive 
them without anv sensible inconvenience, 

J. E. 

It would seem, therefore, from the above remarks, that the 
State Levee question is truly a subject requiring the potent 
aid of reconstruction : Here then Congress may give a help- 
ing hand, with the laudable purpose of enabling the State, 
through National aid, to carry out the important work of 
renonstrucring the I.evees of Louisianri. 



ll^ 



But, if the means of repairing and rebuilding the Levees 
are to await the reconstruction of the State, then we must 
pause until its political destiny is settled by that august body 
about to meet in Convention for the purpose of framing anew 
the State Constitution. 

Whatever may be the result of the deliberations of the Con- 
vention, it is to be hoped that the State will be restored to 
Union, ultimately, under such form of Constitution as will, 
upon a National basis, secure consistently the rights, safety, 
and welfare of the legitimate people. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, with great respect, 

Your obedient Servant, 

J. E. EPMONSTON, 



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